|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Cornell Men's Lacrosse |
|
| |
|
|
| |
October 22 , 2008 |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Cornell Men’s Lacrosse Announces 2009 Schedule
|
|
| |
ITHACA, N.Y. – Jeff Tambroni, the Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Cornell Lacrosse, has announced the schedule for the upcoming 2009 season. The slate is an exciting one, featuring the appearance of four 2008 NCAA tournament participants, the ever-competitive Ivy League conference, and several games with traditional rivals.
“Our coaching staff and our team are extremely excited about the spring schedule,” said Tambroni. “We know there will be some tremendous challenges week in and week out. The Ivy League continues to grow more and more competitive, as do our upstate rivalries. Those, as well as the addition of two ACC schools, complete, what we think, will be as competitive and as challenging a schedule as we’ve had here at Cornell.”
For the first time in the history of the rivalry, Cornell will travel down the road to Binghamton to take on the Bearcats on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 1 p.m. Binghamton has not beaten the Big Red in five tries.
Cornell will remain on the road as it travels to historic Michie Stadium to take on Army in front of a national audience on ESPNU on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 5 p.m. The Black Knights rebounded after a disappointing 2007 season to finish the 2008 campaign with a 9-6 overall record and a mark of 5-1 in the Patriot League to tie with Navy for the conference title.
Just over one week later, the Big Red will travel to Charlottesville, Va., to face Virginia for the first time since losing to the Cavaliers, 11-10 in the second round of the 2002 NCAA tournament. The game, slated for March 8, at 2:30 p.m., will mark the first regular season match up between the two squads since the Big Red faced Virginia in the 1971 season opener. The Cavaliers finished the 2008 season with a 14-4 record and advanced to the national semifinals before falling eventual national champion Syracuse, 12-11, in double overtime.
Cornell will open the home portion of its schedule two days later on Schoellkopf Field as it plays host to Canisius on Tuesday, March 10, at 4 p.m. The Golden Griffins advanced to their first-ever NCAA tournament in 2008 after setting the school record for victories with a 10-6 overall record and winning the MAAC championship with a conference record of 7-1.
For the past three seasons, Cornell has made a familiar trip to the state of North Carolina, and after a one-year hiatus, the Big Red will take on Duke at Koskinen Stadium on Tuesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. The Blue Devils are coming off last year's 18-2 campaign that included the ACC regular season and tournament championships along with the program's third trip to the national semifinals in the past four years.
The Ivy League portion of the schedule begins the following weekend as Cornell heads to Yale on Saturday, March 21. The Bulldogs are looking to improve on their 4-10 record from a season ago in which they went 0-6 in the Ivy League. Yale returns two of its top four scorers from a season ago, but will need to replace three-year starter George Carafides in goal.
Cornell returns to Ithaca for the next two conference games against Penn on Saturday, March 28 and Harvard on Saturday, April 4. The Quakers have gone 6-7 (3-3 Ivy League) each of the last two years, after earning NCAA Championship berths in both 2004 and 2006. This spring, they will return 23 letter winners and 12 players that started at least one game from a year ago. Playing under a new head coach for the first time in 20 years, the Crimson finished the 2008 season with a 6-8 record overall and a 1-5 mark in the Ancient Eight. However, Harvard will benefit from the return of its top-five scorers, as well as all 10 starters from last season.
The annual showdown with Syracuse travels to the Career Dome this season as Cornell and the Orange face off on Tuesday, April 7, at 7 p.m. The game, which will be televised locally on Time Warner Sports, should prove to be another epic battle as Cornell will look to erase the memories of its disappointing 15-8 loss last season at the hands of the eventual national champions.
Three straight Ivy League games close out the month of April with away games at Dartmouth and Brown sandwiched around a home game vs. Princeton.
Cornell heads out to take on the Big Green on Saturday, April 11. Dartmouth returns two All-Ivy players, including top scorer Ari Sussman, from last season’s team that finished the year 7-7 overall and 3-3 in the Ivy League.
The marquee matchup in Ivy League lacrosse, the Cornell and Princeton rivalry, returns to Schoellkopf Field as the Big Red plays host to Princeton on Saturday, April 18. The two squads have combined for 46 conference titles, sharing the crown in three of the past six seasons. Cornell had a four-game winning streak against the Tigers snapped last season with a 11-7 defeat in Princeton as the Tigers improved their record in the all-time series to 36-30-2. Princeton returns five starters from last year’s 7-6 (4-2 Ivy League) squad, including its leading scorer Tommy Davis and Ivy League Rookie of the Year Jack McBride
In its final road game of the regular season, the Big Red will travel to Brown on Saturday, April 25. Last season, the Bears earned a share of the Ivy League title for the first time in over a decade, and just the seventh time in program history, after finishing the year with an 11-3 record overall and a mark of 5-1 in the conference. Brown returns its All-American goalie Jordan Burke, as well as five of its top point scorers from last season.
For its final game of the regular season, the Big Red will host the 131st all-time meeting with in-state rival Hobart on Saturday, May 2. The Big Red holds a 79-47-4 advantage in the all-time series, which began in 1896. After the Big Red dropped five consecutive meetings from 1996-2000, Cornell head coach Jeff Tambroni, a Hobart graduate, took over the Big Red men's lacrosse program and has led Cornell to an 8-1 record against his alma mater. The Statesmen had a turbulent 2007 season in which the school announced that the team would drop down to Division III, before reversing its decision a week later. Hobart will have a new coach at the helm, as former assistant coach T.W. Johnson takes over a team that went 8-6 overall and 4-3 in the ECAC.
Source: Cornell Sports Information Department
|
|
|
|
